Editorial: New York’s unlevel field

Our opinion: The governor takes steps to increase voting, but other obstacles remain as state Senate Republicans keep the scales tipped in their favor — at a cost to democracy.

New York has a voting problem. Maybe the only people who don’t think so are politicians who don’t want certain voters to vote.

It’s the same problem that has kept state legislators clinging to whatever power they can wield over redistricting: politicians can choose their voters, rather than citizens choosing their leaders. It’s nothing less than a challenge to democracy in the state.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has taken on one piece of the problem with a directive to all state agencies to make voter registration forms available to people with whom they interact, and to offer them help filling them out. The governor also wants SUNY and CUNY to review campus registration efforts.

Voter registration is indeed lower in New York than the national average — 66.5 percent of eligible voters are registered in the state, compared with 70.3 percent nationally. Turnout is also a problem. About 61 percent of eligible voters turned out across the country last November, but only about 57 percent voted in New York. The turnout was about 10 points lower among people with disabilities.

There’s no lack of suggestions on what could be done to improve turnout: early voting over multiple days; voting by mail; “no excuse” absentee ballot voting rather than the current system that allows it only for certain reasons; improving poll accessibility for people with disabilities; and having more poll workers and voting machines to reduce lines.

Those ideas, however, have failed to gain traction in the Legislature, particularly in the Republican-controlled state Senate.

Why, it’s fair to wonder, would lawmakers resist making voting as convenient as possible for all citizens? The most generous answer would be cluelessness — that some of these part-time lawmakers making what many New Yorkers would consider a nice full-time salary don’t know what it’s like to juggle the demands of a single parent household or a two-income family, making it hard for adults to take off what might end up being a few hours to vote.

The less generous answer is that Senate Republicans want to make voting harder for many voters in a state in which enrolled Democrats outnumber Republicans and Conservatives combined more than two-to-one. With people at the lower end of the income scale more likely to be Democrat and more challenged to find time to get to the polls, improvements in turnout would likely benefit Democrats.

So the Republicans’ reluctance seems rational. But it’s not ethical. To manipulate the system, to purposely make it difficult, even by inaction, for certain people to vote, is a violation of their civil rights as sure as any poll tax or literacy test or any other tactic historically used to keep certain groups of people from voting.

Fair is fair, political consequences notwithstanding. Those standing in the way of voter participation ought to recognize that politicians should win on ideas, not machinations.

4 Responses

With the unfair advantage that Republicans have in elections in New York, one wonders how Democrat Hillary Clinton won New York’s electoral votes in the last presidential election, how Democrat Andrew Cuomo was elected as our governor, how the Democrat party has a majority in the Assembly, etc., etc., etc..

—Is HRC soaring into NYS on her magic carpetbag good
for democracy, Eds?
—Ideas not machinations?
Like trying to squash debate in the Senate?
What about editorializing on the importance of openness,
discussion, and – yes – debate?
—We have a total one-party blue state out here
on the other coast. The only thing this is good for is
the promotion of political and social insanity.
—Running a state isn’t good enough.
The Blues here want to run their own country.

One might wonder how those statistics vary if choosing to separate, and compare, North of the Tappen Zee bridge, from South of the Tappen Zee bridge? It’s been a LONG time since the City of NY, aside from the Office of the Mayor, was anywhere near “under Republican domination or control”. What are the statistics in NYC, and how do they compare with the rest of NY State?

Who is responsible for, “improving poll accessibility for people with disabilities; and having more poll workers and voting machines to reduce lines.” in, and around the Big Apple? Thankfully, all NY citizens have the RIGHT to vote, which in and of itself is also a valuable privilege, they ALL have access to. How do the statistics you reference compare Upstate NY with NYC? Perhaps the problem isn’t with the NY Statewide voting system as much as it is with the management of the system in larger population centers?

This garbage is absolutely amazing! I have found it rather easy to vote when I go. I don’t see a problem. Now they want assistance given to people filling out voter registration, voting by mail, no excuse absentee voting, come on! First off, if people can’t even make the effort to go to the voting station then that is their personal choice. This society continues to push spoon feeding the masses. Get real. This is a sorry state of affairs. If you can’t take this simple steps like filling out a former or going to a voting station then don’t vote. That is your fault and choice, not some else’s